When someone says,
"New Mexico," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Aliens? Cactus?
A Chinese-friendly, loosely guarded National Laboratory?

Get ready for a new
mental screensaver. If legislators do the right thing, little ol' New
Mexico is going to be the first place in the world where you won't be
able to legally buy the deadliest health danger known to mankind: aspartame.
For the millions of methanol addicts who rely on their daily fix of diet
soda, or for the Merisant Company who rakes in millions on aspartame yearly,
this is not good news. For the rest of us, it is salvation.

Aspartame is composed
of the controversial genetically-engineered amino acid phenylalanine,
a second component called aspartic acid that is known to cause holes in
the brain similar to Alzheimer’s, and finally, methanol, a very addictive
form of alcohol that causes blindness. When sincere scientists at the
Food and Drug Administration vehemently condemned it, Donald Rumsfeld,
a former CEO of aspartame’s maker, G.D. Searle, resorted to calling in
political favors to get it approved for our food.

Since that fateful
time, it has been politics, not medical evidence and truth, that has kept
it on our grocery shelves for nearly three decades. Now, however, there
is hope on the horizon.

New Mexico’s legislature
has an opportunity to stand up to the cadre of bought-and-paid-for federal
regulators, industrial bullies, suck-up medical operatives and self-proclaimed
philanthropical organizations. Opposing them, Stephen Fox, a Santa Fe
art dealer and aspartame foe, has a cadre of his own-- twenty-two state
senators who signed a letter asking for the governor’s endorsement of
a bill against aspartame; angry aspartame victims who want justice for
the thieves who stole their health; honest health professionals who are
embarrassed by those who aren’t; and ordinary citizens and concerned aspartame
activists whose cognitive abilities have not been impaired with hefty
industry donations.

If Governor Bill
Richardson recognizes the former for the scum they are and listens to
the latter, there is a possibility that Senate Bill 654 will get his Executive
Message, an important legal detail that will assist the bill’s chance
of becoming law.

On Friday, the New
Mexico Senate Public Affairs Committee tabled the bill by a vote of 7-2.
Six of the seven votes came from Senators who are enthusiastic Diet Coke
fans (read: methanol addicts). Refusing to give up, Senator Ortiz y Pino
has called for a press conference on Monday, Feb. 6 in the Capitol Rotunda
where Cori Brackett will give all legislators a copy of her documentary,
Sweet
Misery: A Poisoned World. Dr. Betty Martini, founder of Mission
Possible International, an organization of physicians, lawyers, and victims
will also attend. On Tuesday Ms. Brackett will hold a screening of this
important movie.

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Even if these valiant
efforts are spurned and aspartame is not banned, what happens in New Mexico
will not stay in New Mexico. The world’s eyes are already aware and watching.
Ironically, and some might say, divinely, New Mexico's motto is
Crescit Eundo, "It Grows As It Goes," referring to a lightening
bolt gaining power, bringing light to the darkness. And when it comes
to aspartame, how great is that darkness.

Donna Voetee,
N.D., is a health counselor and the founder of Supermarket Survival, a
series of classes about the dangers of food additives that she teaches
through the City of Victorville, Calif. She lives in Hesperia and can
be reached at (760) 956-9560

Aspartame
is composed of the controversial genetically-engineered amino acid phenylalanine,
a second component called aspartic acid that is known to cause holes in
the brain similar to Alzheimer’s, and finally, methanol, a very addictive
form of alcohol that causes blindness.